Better Living Through Social Science Research

By Jonathan A. Knee

Sept. 25, 2015

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CreditCreditPenguin Random House

Academic work in the social sciences often elicits puzzlement from those outside the scholarly realm. Even after one cuts through the layers of technical jargon, the nature of the questions asked can be mystifying.

On the one hand, the lengths to which researchers go to “prove” propositions that seem intuitively obvious to a layman are perplexing. On the other hand, the topics pursued can be so narrow as to be of little apparent use in any complex, real-life situation. More broadly, the entire approach often seems intended to avoid attracting any possible general interest.

This phenomenon is explained partly by the fact that success in academia is achieved by persuading a technical audience of your bona fides, not a general one of your relevance. Indeed, excessive preoccupation with the popular media or practical applications can be viewed as a disqualifying lack of seriousness in an aspiring academic. Distinguished academics toward the end of their careers will sometimes try to produce a more accessible description of their chosen field. More often than not, however, they appear by then to have lost the ability to communicate effectively outside of their professional sphere.

Accordingly, it is usually left to particularly insightful journalists like Malcolm Gladwell to translate these fields of inquiry into a language meaningful to the public. The success of a blockbuster like “Freakonomics,” written by a recognized but relatively young academic, is the exception that proves the rule – and in that case was written with a journalist.

Against this backdrop, “Friend & Foe: When to Cooperate, When to Compete, and How to Succeed at Both” (Crown Business: 2015) is unusual on a number of levels. Both of the authors, Adam Galinsky (whom I know only by reputation through our mutual affiliation with Columbia Business School) and Maurice Schweitzer, are highly regarded professors still in their 40s who have already produced hundreds of scholarly publications between them.

Although business school academics are more likely than others to produce general interest books, these tend to focus exclusively on management subjects. “Friend & Foe,” by contrast, bills itself as broadly offering “a set of tools” to help “navigate the shifting sands of our social world.”

Specifically, Professors Galinsky and Schweitzer try to synthesize the implications of the most recent decades of social science research – both their own and others’ – to explain how to manage most effectively the key recurring interactions that characterize our professional and personal lives.

The fresh practical insights of “Friend & Foe” underscore the potential benefits of disseminating research results beyond the ivory tower. On a range of topics like gender differences in mathematical aptitude and the best strategy in making the first offer, well-established and frequently replicated results have not made much of a dent in common misconceptions. “Friend & Foe” highlights that this applies not just to conventional wisdom but to the views of professionals who should know better and risk their livelihoods by remaining ignorant.

Lawrence H. Summers, one of the most distinguished economists of his generation, would very likely still be president of Harvard if he had bothered to examine the research demonstrating that gender differences –whether reflected in math SAT results or the likelihood to ask for a raise – overwhelmingly reflect differences in power, not aptitude.

For instance, one study of the math scores of a quarter-million teenagers across 40 countries found a tight correlation between any “gender gap” and a country’s overall level of gender inequality. A country like Iceland with the highest gender equality actually reported higher math scores for women. These results have been reinforced by numerous studies within countries that show how reducing the power gap simultaneously diminishes the gender gap.

“Friend & Foe” not only synthesizes this and other research related to gender, but it ties this to concrete suggestions for mitigating structural barriers to women’s professional success.

Investment bankers routinely advise their clients never to make the first offer. This professional “best practice” is at odds with well-established research entertainingly described by Professors Galinsky and Schweitzer. These studies demonstrate that the psychological “anchoring” effect of throwing out an aggressive first proposal just this side of crazy consistently yields a better result for the client in negotiations.

The research summarized in “Friend & Foe” does not prove that forcing the other side to make the first offer never makes sense – there are actually narrow circumstances where that is preferable. It does suggest, however, that investment bankers’ expensive advice is driven more by the fear of being embarrassed by getting the opening proposal wrong than by a deep commitment to optimizing the client’s outcome.

“Friend & Foe” demonstrates the value of making technical research understandable to the uninitiated. The downside of leaving it with the scholars is felt not only in our personal and professional lives but in the quality of discourse on important public policy matters.

If anything, the authors err on the side of making the underlying research too accessible by interspersing dozens of current events and personal anecdotes, some of which are more effective than others. Even the conceit of the title – that the research will enable readers to optimize the balance between cooperation and competition – doesn’t neatly coincide with the subject of all of the studies summarized. That said, the authors perform a significant public service by pulling back the self-imposed veil that academics drape over their most socially relevant research.